User:MasterA113/Vandalism

Writing Workshop

Just north of the city of Chicago, Illinois lies a quaint little town called Oak Hill. It is a quiet little town, where most of the action takes place in the “U” shaped town circle. The train station has two rail lines running through it, and lets commuters from Chicago and Milwaukee enjoy the splendor of this nice little plot on the map. Across from the train station is the Volunteer Fire Department and the Oak Hill Police Department, but neither of those buildings had seen a lot of action lately. Then, a row of small shops and restaurants took up the rest of the circle, with a small gazebo in the middle of the “U”. Surrounding the main part of the town were a variety of houses, ranging big and small. But those aren’t the only houses in Oak Hill. There is a dirt path along the railroad tracks that keep going for about a quarter of a mile, and end up in the woods. In the forest, there is a 50 year old trailer, sitting chained up to a pickup truck, sitting in a bluff, right below the highway. This is the Brigham family, and today, we will learn the wonders of a typical holiday at their household. Now, on this November 24, a fresh blanket of snow was fresh on the ground, and the townspeople were just waking up on this Thanksgiving Day, being that it was 7:00 in the morning, but the Brigham family had already been awake for 2 hours. “Dammit Ma! Where did you take my fishin’ box!?” Pa Brigham screamed at the top of his lungs, rattling the trailer. “I put them under your bed! That’s where I always put ‘em!” Ma screamed back, equally as loud. Before we move on any further, let me introduce you to the Brigham family. First, there’s William “Pa” Brigham. Pa is a Korean War veteran who was shot down over enemy territory in his F-86. After 3 years in prison, he was returned to the United States, and lived in Nevada, where unbeknownst to him, he was being used as a guinea pig for the Air Force, testing the effects of fallout from their Hydrogen Bomb Tests 4 years earlier. The government still pays him to compensate for the effects of the radiation. Ten years later, it was 1967, and he met his wife, had his first son, and moved to his current home. Sally “Ma” Brigham is a 500 lb. woman, who works for the Metra Commuter Railroad, driving their trains. In 1967, she met Pa in Washington D.C. when she was shot by the Metro Police for starting a riot with some of the Black Panthers, and trying to storm the Library of Congress. Uncle Gundy is Pa’s younger brother, who sleeps in a shack by the railroad tracks, and is always trying to earn “monies”, alongside with his brother, Mario. Reggie Ray is the youngest child in the Brigham family, at 10 years old. He is somewhat embarrassed of his family, but still loves them. Virginia Slims isn’t technically a relative to the family, but they consider her one. She is a 50 year old, 300 lb. African American woman, who has had a hole drilled into her throat, due to the fact that she has smoked 3 packs a day since she was 9. Now, when she can no longer suck in air down her throat, she just smokes through the hole. She cannot speak without a little device she holds up to her throat to create a voice. Theo is the oldest brother. He is 22 years old, and attends St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Wisconsin. Christmas and Thanksgiving are the only two days he is at his home. When asked why he was sent to military school, he won’t answer; he’ll just say that it has to do with hairspray, a Zippo lighter, 3 cars, and the gas station on 4th street that “they closed down a while ago”. So, getting back to our story, Pa went under his bed, and found a box marked “U.S.A.F. Surplus”. He lifted the top, revealing 17 MkllA1 grenades that his father had passed onto him from World War Two. There were only 17, because after his father had given them to him, he accidentally set off 3 of them, vaporizing his father’s house, along with his father. “Reggie Ray! Git yer sorry carcass out here!” he yelled to his son as he walked outside. “Since yer Ma is cookin’ Thanksgiving dinner, we might want to catch some fish so we can at least eat something!” “Why you sorry son of a b…” Ma began, “Git outside ‘afore I tan yer hide!” Reggie Ray threw on his clothes, and followed Pa outside, and headed toward the little lake that was in their “backyard”. “Wait a minute son! Did you remember the extra fishin’ gear?” Pa asked. “Sorry Pa! No, I’ll go get it” Reggie Ray said as he ran back to the trailer. He went into Pa’s room, and found a safe underneath a pyramid of beer cans. He pulled it open, and inside rested a MAC 10 submachine gun. This was the extra fishing gear in case the grenades weren’t working. After running back outside, and crawling onto their boat, Pa and Reggie Ray started pulling pins out of the grenades, and dropping them in the water. “FWOOSH!” the first grenade went as it blew 2 trout out of the water. Reggie Ray caught them, and dropped them into a bucket. “There’s two more of the little commies right over there boy! Git ‘em!” Pa screamed as Reggie Ray dropped another grenade into the water. Meanwhile, inside, Ma was getting ready to make the turkey with “all the fixin’s” as she would say. “Gundy! Mario! Git yer sorry hides in here!” she screamed outside. “Quiet woman! I ain’t comin’ in just yet!” Pa screamed over the machine gun Reggie Ray was firing into the water. “Not you! I’m callin’ Gundy and Mario!” Ma screamed back, “An’ what’s my boy doin’ firin’ that gun into the water?” “He’s fishin’, woman! You got a problem with it?” Pa answered. “Don’t you got enough sense to know that a gun can’t fire underwater?” she asked him. “Uh…” Pa began as the gun ran out of bullets. “That’s what I though!” Ma said, triumphantly, “Now get Mario and Gundy out here, lickety split!” “C’mon boy!” He told Reggie Ray, “Let’s take her ashore, and then you can see what we caught.” The boat washed ashore, and Pa began to walk over to the uncles’ shack. “Mario and Gundy! Get outside right now!” he screamed. “But I’m tired” a voice said coming out from under the door. “I don’t give! Get out here now! It’s Thanksgiving!” Pa replied. “What? Is the food done yet?” the voice replied back. “Well, if y’all don’t go get it, the only food you gonna’ eat is gonna’ be your ass after I’m done beatin’ it!” he yelled at them, getting increasingly irritated. “But I don’t wanna’…” the voice whined again. “That’s it! Now I’m comin’ in there!” Pa yelled as he charged for the door. Uncle Gundy was standing right in front of the door, unaware of what was coming next. Before he could move, the door flew open, throwing him into the wall, and breaking his left arm. Pa looked over, and saw Mario sleeping. He grabbed an aluminum baseball bat off of the wall, and smashed Mario’s gut with it, sending Mario flying out of bed. “NOW LISTEN TO ME!” Pa bellowed, “You two are going to go into town, and you will buy Ma’s ingredients, and the snacks for me for my Bears game!” “But the Bears don’t play today! You just watch that same videotape from the 1958 game of them playing against the Cardinals” Gundy whined. “Yeah! And plus, we don’t have no monies to buy food with!” Mario chimed in. “I mean the food in the back that don’t cost nothing! And if you need more, you can go steal some!” he told them. “But we don’t gots a car to drive to the store!” Gundy whined, again. “Then take the Metra train!” Pa told them. “But that costs monies!” Mario tried to explain. “Then find some other way to get into town! If you aren’t back here by 3:00, I will burn down your little crap shack here!” he threatened them. “Y-yes, sir” Gundy told Pa. Back outside of the door to the house, Reggie Ray dumped out the bucket of fish on the ground, for cleaning. Unfortunately, fishing with grenades isn’t very clean. A pile of bloody fish guts and parts spilled out into the fresh winter snow, staining it red. Mmm-mmm! There are some good eats! he thought to himself as he began to scoop them into a beaten up frying pan. Inside of the house, Ma began to clean the kitchen for the dinner, when a crackly, monotone voice began to speak. “Happy Thanksgiving, Ma” Virginia Slims said, holding the mechanical larynx to her neck, “Are we gonna’ have a good dinner today?” “I dunno’ Ginny. If them moronic brothers of mine can get my groceries back here, it’ll be the best dammed Thanksgiving you ever tasted!” she said back. Virginia lit a cigarette and puffed on it. “Well” she said as she blew the smoke out of the hole in her throat, “I’ll call Pizza Hut just in case” “I already did, Ginny. Remember? I use pizza fer my stuffing!” “Alright” Virginia said as more smoke shot out of her throat. Outside, Uncle Gundy and Mario sat by the railroad tracks, getting ready to hitch a ride into town. They were excited to hear the rumbling and horn of an approaching locomotive. “Alright, Gundy! You just grab onto the side, like in the movies, and then grab me, and the train will carry us into town!” Mario explained to him. “But Mario!” Uncle Gundy whined, “I can’t!” “Why the hell not?” Mario asked. “Uhh… ‘Cause I’m dying!” Gundy answered. He then coughed some blood into the snow. “Nice try, but you cough up blood like that every day!” Mario said, exposing his lie. “I’m sorry” Gundy said as he turned to the train tracks. The train came barreling down the tracks at 65 miles per hour. The engine was roaring, and honked at the two, warning them to back up. “Here it comes!” Mario yelled. The locomotive sped by, creating a gust of wind. Gundy watched in horror as the word “Amtrak” flew by, again, and again. “Do it now, Gundy! The train’s almost gone!” Uncle Gundy reached his arm out, and grabbed hold of a handrail on the side of one of the coaches. What happened next happened so fast, Mario couldn’t really tell what happened. Gundy suddenly felt an unimaginable pain in his shoulder. Then, there was a loud crack as the bones separated, and his entire right arm was torn clean off. Mario watched in horror as the arm, still clinging to the train, rode off into the distance. He then looked down at his brother, rolling in the snow, bleeding, and shrieking so loudly, it took Mario a few seconds to get his hearing back. “I don’t understand how that happened! It always works in the movies!” he tried telling Gundy, who was in too much pain to hear what he was saying. “Well”, Mario began, “I guess I have to cauterize the wound”, he finished as he took out a lighter. Uptown, a coach bus had just arrived at the bus depot right across from the train station. All of the passengers got off, and the bus drove away. The last passenger off was a young man in a light blue uniform, black jacket, and had 2 yellow arrows on his arm. He looked at the train station as an Amtrak train smeared with what looked like barbeque sauce sped by, and began to walk down a dirt path. Unbeknownst to him, he was being followed by a van that read “Oak Hill Cable”. Inside of the van, two men sat, observing the young man. “Is it him?” one asked the driver. “Yes, Theodore Brigham, 22, born July 15, 1984 in Lake Forest, Illinois. Attends Military School in Wisconsin”, the passenger answered. “Alright. Get on the line to ATF in Washington. It’s going to be Ruby Ridge all over again”…

To Be Continued…